Parson’s said North Texas’ strong job growth and increasing population are fueling demand for rental housing.

And home purchases are being held down by a tight inventory of housing and tough mortgage lending standards.

Net apartment leasing in the D-FW area totaled almost 600 units in the first quarter.

Only about 6 percent of the D-FW apartments are vacant.

Parsons said it’s too early to say how all of the new apartment projects in the pipeline in North Texas will do.

“Much of the pent-up demand for new apartments has now been burned off, and with so much more supply on the way, we expect to see moderately slower lease-ups going forward,” he said. “That likely means lesser rent growth in the hot-development areas, but as long as the economy continues to produce jobs, we should continue to see fairly strong rent growth in D-FW’s more established neighborhoods.”